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The volume weaves various strands of multilingual communication into a multi-faceted work, which, to a large extent, reflects research conducted at the Research Centre on Multilingualism at the University of Hamburg, Germany. After two introductory contributions, multilingual communication is discussed as "Mediated multilingual communication" (part I),"Code- switching" (part II), and as "Rapport and politeness" in multilingual settings (part III). Pragmatic issues also play a role in the functional analyses of part IV ("Grammar and discourse in a contrastive perspective"). According to their different foci the contributions go beyond canonical issues of multilingual communication and language contact and offer insights into pragmatics and translation studies.

SYNOPSIS

In the opening contribution, "What is 'multilingual communication'", House and Rehbein discuss the premise of the volume. For them multilingual communication comprises the following characteristics: - The use of several languages for the common purposes of participants - Multilingual individuals who use language(s) to realize these purposes - The different language systems which interact for these purposes - Multilingual communication structures, whose purposes make individuals use several languages (p. 1).

Furthermore, the editors broach the issues of multi-language constellations, discourse type (written and spoken), and the importance of multilingual communication in institutional settings. In terms of research the authors stress the method of contrasting languages, and they sketch a list of research objectives for multilingual communication. The introduction concludes with brief synopses of the individual contributions in the volume.

Clyne's introductory article "Towards an agenda for developing multilingual communication with a community base" calls for the creation of institutional efforts to foster multilingualism through maintenance of immigrant languages. Taking the example of Australia where "over 200 languages are used in the homes" across the continent (p. 21), Clyne sees a vast potential for establishing curricular offerings of minority languages particularly in border areas and large cities throughout the European nation states. In order to underline the benefits of multilingualism, the author argues against some myths, which penetrate popular belief about multilingualism such as the notions that language develops autonomously and does not need institutional support, that the standard of the national language is declining in multilingual settings, and that two or more languages stand in a competitive relationship in a speaker's brain bearing detrimental effects on the speaker's language skills. Clyne also raises the question why globalization leads to linguistic monoculture instead of linguistic pluralism.

Part I "Mediated multilingual communication" features four articles, all of which deal with multilingual communication on the interface of translation or interpretation between L1 and L2. Bührig and Meyer investigate the role of ad-hoc interpreters as mediators in communication between doctors (L1 German) and patients (L1 Turkish or Portuguese). Despite the fact that ad-hoc interpreters in the study failed to express essential parts of the doctor's message (in particular by neglecting modal and passive structures), the patients still consented to the doctor's proposals for treatment.

In the "Interaction of spokenness and writtenness in audience design" Baumgarten and Probst discuss the use of features of spoken language in English and German popular scientific writings. They follow a functional approach to text analysis (Halliday 1979), and draw on Biber's dimensions for distinguishing spoken from written language (1988, 1995). A comparison between English original text, German parallel (original) text, and a German translation of the English original show an interesting outcome for the spoken language features of a) usage of speaker and hearer deictics and b) coordinating and subordinating conjunctions in sentence initial and medial position. While the English original incorporates more of these features than the German parallel text, the German translation takes a middle position between the two original versions. This indicates that, in the process of translation, English lexico-grammatical patterns can boost the frequency of the same patterns in a German translation, i.e. English exerts influence on German through "covert translation".

Another phenomenon of covert translation is presented in Bührig and House's paper "Connectivity in translation", which compares the German translation of the English transcript of a speech on business ethics delivered at Florida A&M University in 1997. The original and the translation exhibit differences in the realization of textual connectivity as exemplified by diverging uses of temporal clauses and prepositional phrases, by alternative renderings of discourse markers, and by a lack of lexical repetition, list structures, and compositional parallelism in the German translation. In terms of these connective features the German translation appears in a style that is more written and formal than the English original. According to the authors these differences arise from the application of a "cultural filter" (House 1977, 1997), which leads to a pragmatic shift in the process of translation.

Böttger's contribution "Genre-mixing in business communication" portrays how a translation can diverge from the original when the genre from the source language text is unknown in the same textual function in the target language. Thus, Anglo American corporate philosophies are typically expressed in a "creed genre" (e.g. repetitive sentence beginnings, alliteration, lexical repetition, and parallel structures) and communicate future-oriented values, both of which are lost in the German translations. Instead, the German versions express corporate philosophies indirectly and strike a warning note with the usage of "nur dann ... wenn"-constructions ('only if...then'). The author claims that a reason for this genre-mixing is tied to the fact that the text type of Anglo American corporate philosophies has only recently been imported into the German language- cultural area.

In Part II the phenomenon of code-switching is viewed from three different perspectives. Holmes and Stubbe ("Strategic code-switching in New Zealand workplaces") relate to the process of identity construction and to the expression of intergroup solidarity by means of code-switching between speakers of Maori English, Pakeha English (English spoken by European, mainly British, settlers), and Samoan. By analyzing the social affective functions of code-switches recorded in various working environments in New Zealand, the authors conclude that speakers of Maori English and Samoan switch from their distinctive intragroup codes closer to Pakeha English when interacting with Pakeha English speakers. In turn there is some evidence that the latter also employ features of Maori English to express solidarity with speakers of Maori English.

Edmondson's article "Code-switching and world-switching in foreign language classroom discourse" deals with a special case of code-switching since, in institutional language instruction, code-switches between common language and subject language are often employed by the teacher as an instructional tool allowing her/him to switch worlds, i.e. roles, from an initiator and model of target language discourse to an institutional pedagogic personae. For Edmondson, the analysis of learner and teacher interaction during English lessons in a German secondary school shows that a lack of code-switching, i.e. world-switching, can lead to miscommunication and pedagogic disarray that seems detrimental to the learning environment. Thus, the author concludes that a monolingual approach of target language only fails to account for the complexity of foreign language classroom discourse and that teachers should not "feel guilty or unprofessional, if they use a common language in order to communicate with learners, or, indeed, to teach them" (p. 175).

"The neurobiology of code-switching" presents the results of a study based on fMRI-scanning of subjects' brain activities while reading a version of Harry Potter riddled with intersentential code-switches between German (L1) and English (L2). The aim of the study is to map the change of brain activity induced by code-switching and thus investigate whether different languages are neurologically represented in different areas of the brain. The results for three subject groups (medical students, English language students, and interpreters of L1 and L2) demonstrate that reading in L2 causes increased activation in Broca and Wernicke areas and in the right Broca area located in the right hemisphere. Activations in the right hemisphere are significantly higher in subjects with a pronounced discrepancy of L1 and L2. As the difference between L1 and L2 competence decreases, subjects show a stronger left lateralization. Additional activations at the moment of code-switching are measured in the prefrontal cortex (BA 9 and 10) as well as in the anterior cingulum. However, the authors conclude that these areas are not specialized in code-switching but generally function as centers of attention, comparison, and control.

Part III "Rapport and politeness" includes two articles addressing different pragmatic issues. In "Rapport management problems in Chinese- British business interactions" Spencer-Oatey and Xing document a case study of miscommunication between British and Chinese businessmen during a visit of a Chinese delegation at the headquarters of a British company in England. The authors analyze a combination of discourse data and post- event interviews by means of a multiple level account of miscommunication (Coupland et.al. 1991). After the awkward business interactions, the English and Chinese participants have mainly held the interpreter responsible for the occurrence of miscommunications.

"Introductions: Being polite in multilingual settings" offers a theoretical and empirical account on introduction formulae as instances of polite action. In their theoretical framework Rehbein and Fienemann assert six stages of action systems when people become acquainted: "strangeness, permission to introduce, naming and categorization, action system of (fleeting) acquaintanceship, longer lasting action system (getting to know questions), and familial type relationship (intimate relation)" (p. 234). In this multi-stage model, introduction formulae cover the stages from strangeness to (fleeting) acquaintanceship. The main empirical part of the article consists of a qualitative analysis of a conversation during a dinner party as a student (L1 Arabic) enters the room and is greeted and introduced in German by his fellow students (native speakers of Arabic, Estonian, Turkish, and German). From this and other speech situations the authors infer that patterns of politeness can be transferred from L1 to L2 through a process of pragmatic transfer. Rehbein and Fienemann also establish homileïc discourse (characterized by linguistic actions such as storytelling, bantering, irony...) as an intercultural and interlinguistic foundation of polite speech acts.

Part IV "Grammar and discourse in a contrastive perspective" features two thematically related articles comparing features of German and Japanese grammar and their diverse discourse functions. Kameyama analyzes "Modal expressions in Japanese and German planning discourse". While German expresses modality through subjunctive verb forms, modal verbs, and matrix constructions (e.g. Ich glaube, dass; ich denke dass), Japanese employs complex modal constructions, e.g. negative statements, interrogative particle 'ka', deliberative 'na' and symbolic expressions. A case study portrays how, through interference, an L1 German speaker fails to coherently apply Japanese modality structures and thus conveys the image of a self-centered, insensitive and uncooperative speaker. This leads the author to conclude that, for the purpose of politeness, language teaching should focus on the contrast of expressing modality in German and Japanese.

The final contribution to the volume, "A comparative analysis of Japanese and German complement constructions with matrix verbs of thinking and believing" illustrates the differences and similarities of the German "ich glaub(e)-construction" and the Japanese "to omou"-construction in expert discourse (academic conferences and presentations and commercial presentations). Hohenstein divides the 'I think-constructions' into various subgroups according to the use of different complementizers (Japanese) and according to their occurrence as matrix constructions or as de-grammaticalized matrix constructions (German). For Hohenstein these distinctions make clear that even though 'I think-constructions' exhibit some crosslinguistic similarities such as speaker-deictic reference and the embedding of propositions, they are in fact non-equivalent due to language specific syntactic and pragmatic functions.

COMMENTS

The volume addresses a vast variety of aspects of multilingual communication, which renders it highly recommendable for a readership interested in multilingual issues, in translation studies, and in the functional-pragmatic analysis of discourse. Individual contributions might also appeal to researchers with an eye for the foreign language classroom and to linguists with an interest in neurobiology. Despite its broad thematic scope, many of the articles carry a pragmatic undertone, which acts as a binding element of the different parts of the volume. The four parts are balanced with a slight tilt towards the relationship of translation and multilingualism, and the title of part IV promises more diversity than the two thematically related articles hold.

Further strengths of the volume are the cohesive style of its contributions and the accessible analyses of a wealth of discourse data with the exception of Bührig and Meyer's article on ad-hoc interpreting of doctor-patient-communication. In this case more examples of doctor-patient discourse and a direct comparison with the utterances of the ad-hoc interpreter would have more vigorously illustrated their claim that the impersonal and general reference of the doctor is largely lost in the ad- hoc translations.

In general the issue of mediated multilingual communication deserves special notice since the actual creators of the discourse produce their speech acts from a largely monolingual point of view. Multilingual competence in the relevant discourse languages is confined to the interpreter or translator who is, however, not the primary source of the speech act. Thus, from a perspective of multilingualism, the mediator forms a center of attention. While this role is apparent in the field of translation theory, a separate description of the mediator's function in multilingual communication seems necessary in order to establish a clear connection between mediation and multilingual communication for a broader multilingual-minded audience. This need for clarification is particularly evident in the situation of ad-hoc interpretation. As Bührig and Meyer imply, the lack of modal and passive constructions in the interpretations of the doctor's utterance is dependent on the individual language skills of the unprofessional interpreters and their relationship to the patient as relatives or nurses and is not a question of what is feasible in terms of translational equivalence. The latter is at the core of Bührig and House's contribution "Connectivity in translation", which is an impressive and detailed account of how a speech on business ethics delivered in American English looses its original expressiveness through the application of a cultural filter in the process of translation into German. Their clear demonstration of the deviance of original and translation evokes the reader's curiosity for alternative means of expression in the German version.

From the diverse perspectives on multilingualism in the volume, "The neurobiology of code-switching" stands out as one of the first attempts that discuss multilingualism in a neurological framework. As the authors remark, the MRI technique allows for new, albeit limited, ways of investigating brain activity in language reception. Thus, "MRI answers questions regarding the localization of neuronal activations, but not questions concerning the temporal course of activations" (p. 184). In this respect it would be interesting to know by which methods the authors were able to distinguish MRI scans during or at the moment of code-switching from MRI scans of other brain activities.

In "Modal expressions in Japanese and German planning discourse" Kameyama arrives at the conclusion that an improper use of modal constructions (caused by interference from the speaker's L1, German) conveys an impression of impoliteness in a formal Japanese discourse situation. While convincing from an objective point of view, the transcript of the specific discourse situation in the study alludes to the fact that the listener's background knowledge about the speaker can also influence the perception of the speaker's degree of politeness. Thus, at the beginning of the transcript before the L2 Japanese speaker commences his report, the L1 Japanese audience jokes about him and says that he can deliver his speech in German. This shows that the listeners are aware of the fact that the speaker's Japanese might not meet native standards. Having established a common ground of expectations for the following speech act, the L2 Japanese speaker's improper way of expressing modality could be interpreted as a lack of language competence by the L1 Japanese listeners, and so they might not necessarily regard his speech as impolite.

Altogether "Multilingual Communication" is a thought provoking and stimulating volume that not only indicates the vastness of the field, but also offers an in-depth view on diverse aspects of multilingual communication. In its complexity it reaches out to a wide target audience from the fields of multilingualism, language contact, translation studies, pragmatics, and discourse analysis.

Alexander Onysko is a PhD candidate at Innsbruck University, Austria. His research interest is language contact and multilingualism. The topic of his dissertation is: "Anglicisms in German: borrowing, lexical productivity, and code-switching in a written corpus of 'Der Spiegel'. He currently teaches German at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN.